December 15, 2007
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Christmas
Astronauts deck
walls with boughs of nylonThe Christmas tree won’t be the only thing that’s artificial about astronaut Daniel Tani’s holiday.Tani unexpectedly finds himself stuck until early 2008 on the International Space Station, where the clothes and the Christmas spruce are nylon, the water is recycled and much of the food is canned.
Tani arrived on the station in October. Space shuttle Atlantis was supposed to bring him home before Dec. 25, but technical woes grounded the ship after failed launch attempts Dec. 6 and Sunday.NASA now aims to launch Atlantis on Jan. 10, which would delay Tani’s homecoming until mid-January.
The first astronauts to spend Christmas in orbit were the three men on Apollo 8 in 1968. Next was the crew on Skylab, a short-term U.S. space station, in 1973. The three men aboard on Dec. 25 improvised a Space Age tree out of empty food cans. It wasn’t until the first crew moved into the space station in 2000 that U.S. astronauts routinely spent Christmas in orbit.
Comments (3)
Isn’t that space station Russian? or am I getting it mixed up. So would they even care if it’s christmas since they aren’t christians.
nothing like spending Christmas away from you family,-(. tree out of cans…very creative,-)
i am sure to some degree, he and his family are disappointed, but it’s not everyday you get to be in orbit either. i have often tried to talk my kids into celebrating Christmas in January (because of the after Christmas clearances and stuff) but they will not agree to it. now, he has an excuse to celebrate it in January as long as it’s not postponed again.